Herbalife @ BehindMLM

We’ve been seeing a lot of private industry back and forth on Herbalife, but not alot on the government side of things. Sure we know that the FTC and FBI are investigating the company, but to date the specifics and status of those investigations remain a mystery. Now, in a report published by New York [Continue reading…]

The following excerpt from a recent New York Post article pretty much says it all: Hollywood heavyweight Michael Lynton waded into the long-running Bill Ackman-Herbalife battle last year (by) helping the CEO of the nutritional-shake maker try to stop a looming regulatory probe. Michael Johnson, the CEO of Herbalife, reached out in an e-mail to [Continue reading…]

I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried… I’m trying not to read too much into this story, but it appears a desperate Herbalife affiliate wasn’t too happy when one of their customers wanted out.

As part of the settlement in the Bostick lawsuit against Herbalife, those represented by the class-action lawsuit had to agree to fully release Herbalife from all claims that were or could have been raised in the complaints in this action. What that basically meant was, after the settlement was finalized, Herbalife victims would be unable to [Continue reading…]

News broke yesterday that an individual had been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in New York. This particular convening of a grand jury is significant because it involves an investigation related to Herbalife. As best as I can tell, the grand jury news was broken by the Hartford Courant. Before we get into [Continue reading…]

Standard practice here at BehindMLM is to ignore stock market theatrics. Herbalife’s stock price goes up, it goes down, some guys appear on tv to talk about it and so it goes. Of far more importance is the regulatory side of the Herbalife story, which just got more interesting with news of an FBI probe [Continue reading…]

This one’s a bit of an odd story, in that for once Herbalife themselves aren’t directly involved in controversy surrounding the company. Well, sort of. Reports out of Hong Kong a few days ago detail two of the company’s affiliates milking Hong Kong residents for $50 million HKD ($6.4 million USD). How’d they pull that [Continue reading…]

On the back of a Herbalife millionaire claiming that retail sales to customers don’t matter, now comes a letter from the FDA concerning what they describe as a misleading marketing video. In a letter dated December 17th to Herablife CEO Michael Johnson, the FDA’s Michael R. Taylor, Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine, writes

In what looks like a hotel conference room, Stephan Gratziani delivers a training presentation to a crowd of a hundred or so Herbalife affiliates. The Herbalife business model at this point in time is not based on customers purchasing, it’s based on distributors purchasing volume. Several Herbalife executive managers are in the audience, including then Vice-President Mike [Continue reading…]

The Bostick class-action suit filed against Herbalife isn’t quite over yet, but a settlement agreement was filed a settlement yesterday that stipulated it would pay $15 million dollars to settle the case. An additional $2.5 million would be paid to cover “product returns”, along with “numerous changes” to its business model for at least three [Continue reading…]